Helping people to attain a desired psychophysiological state is an important and large business area since people generally aspire and seek to reach a happy and/or relaxed state as often as may be possible. Particular importance is often placed upon relaxation and attaining a relaxed state of body and mind. Thus many relaxation products and services are available which are directed to helping a user relax, for example books, saunas, music theatre, etc.
Typically such products and services are passive in that they do not take into account the psychophysiological state. Accordingly they do not efficiently influence a user's psychophysiological state and can therefore consume a large amount of a user's time.
It is desirable to develop a way of assisting a person in the process of reaching a desired psychophysiological state so as to reduce the possibility of wasting valuable time and/or money that may otherwise be spent attempting reach such a state.
It is known that systems can be used to measure psychophysiological-related data from human beings. Further systems have been proposed which are adapted to actively monitor biometric data (such as heart rate variability or skin conductance levels) of a user and to stimulate the user based on the detected biometric data in an attempt to reach a relaxed state. Typically in such systems a game or challenge is presented to the user to encourage the user to lower stress levels and become more relaxed.
United States Patent Application Publication Number US 2006/0142968 A1 discloses a home control system using galvanic skin responses and heart rate information.